standing at the end of a clump
of timber. A number of rabbits were feeding beneath it, but at his
approach they instantly plunged into their burrows.

Here he halted to look at the castle. The sun had sunk behind it,
dilating its massive keep to almost its present height and tinging the
summits of the whole line of ramparts and towers, since rebuilt and
known as the Brunswick Tower, the Chester Tower, the Clarence Tower, and
the Victoria Tower, with rosy lustre.

Flinging himself at the foot of the beech-tree, the youthful earl
indulged his poetical reveries for a short time, and then, rising,
retraced his steps, and in a few minutes the whole of the south side of
the castle lay before him. The view comprehended the two fortifications
recently removed to make way for the York and Lancaster Towers, between
which stood a gate approached by a drawbridge; the Earl Marshal's Tower,
now styled from the monarch in whose reign it was erected, Edward the
Third's Tower; the black rod's lodgings; the Lieutenant's--now Henry the
Third's Tower; the line of embattled walls, constituting the lodgings of
the alms-knights; the tower tenanted by the governor of that body, and
still allotted to the same officer; Henry the Eight's Gateway, and the
Chancellor of the Garter's Tower--the latter terminating the line
of building. A few rosy beams tipped the pinnacles of Saint George's
Chapel, seen behind the towers above-mentioned, with fire; but, with
this exception, the whole of the mighty fabric looked cold and grey.

At this juncture the upper gate was opened, and Captain Bouchier and his
attendants issued from it, and passed over the drawbridge. The curfew
bell then tolled, the drawbridge was raised, the horsemen disappeared,
and no sound reached the listener's ear except the measured tread of the
sentinels on the ramparts, audible in the profound stillness.

The youthful earl made no attempt to join his followers, but having
gazed on the ancient pile before him till its battlements and towers
grew dim in the twilight, he struck into a footpath leading across the
park towards Datchet, and pursued it until it brought him near a dell
filled with thorns, hollies, and underwood, and overhung by mighty oaks,
into which he unhesitatingly plunged, and soon gained the deepest part
of it. Here, owing to the thickness of the hollies and the projecting
arms of other large overhanging timber, added to the uncertain light
above, the gloom was almos